Common questins in Smart Feeder

Q. I would really like to use the User Defined Report by Group in Smart Feeder, but how do I get started?

A. The first step is to go to Reports Group Feeding User Defined Report by Group, where you will see this screen:

In the middle of the screen is a line that says, “Report to Print.” If starting from scratch select either “First Report” or “**Add New Report”. Next, click on “Define Report” in the bottom left hand corner.

Give the report a meaningful name by clicking on the “Report Name” button. Then start adding lines by pressing the “Add” button.

Description. Type here what you want the report line to say, such as “Animal Info,” “Sales,” “Death Loss,” “Animal Costs,” or more specifically, “ADG,” “Move in,” “Med/Head.”

Hide. Check this box if this line will be used for a calculation you don’t need displayed on the final report.

Source. There currently are 34 sources of information for User Defined Reports. You’ll find them listed in the FBS Help file. The help file can easily be accessed by pressing F1 on your keyboard while in the report definition screen.

Sub Fields. These are based on the source and determine what divisors or calculation (i.e. “Per CWT” or “Total Dollars”) will be displayed on this line. Combined with the sources they provide 568 possible calculations. To see a list and description of sub fields see the FBS Help file.

First Number, Last Number. These fields allow even more reporting possibilities by predetermining the range of items—such as ledger accounts, feed ingredients or death loss causes—to be included on each line.

Value. If you are using a Calculate line source this field can be used for a “plugged” value such as “.74” to convert live pounds to carcass pounds.

Let’s do a quick example to add a line for "Pigs Moved In."Source = "Moved In"Sub Field = "Number"

Here's the completed report line for three groups:

In this example the line displays pigs moved in, not purchased pigs. If you prefer a count of all moved in and purchased animals, change the source to “Totals In.”

As you can see, the Smart Feeder User Defined Report has unlimited capacity and flexibility. In addition to the on-line Help file, FBS schedules webinars, classes and on-site training to help you “mine” more valuable knowledge from your data.

Q. My Smart Feeder User-Defined Reports slow down as I go through the year. How can I speed them up?

A. What you are experiencing is likely due to the processing overhead from the feed valuation routine that determines feed ingredient inventories and values for every day. This process is necessary to accurately calculate feed costs for farms that manufacture their own feed.

If, however, your farm always buys loads of feed directly from a commercial mil (and you don't use a "grain bank" or internal feed inventories) you can bypass this step by always selecting the Feed Valuation Method option #2 (Value on Application) when running feeding reports.

Even if your farm processes feed from inventories (your own feed mill or a grain bank) you can take advantage of this shortcut by going to Input General Feeding Value Feed Records. You'll need to do this once for every year that you'll be running feeding reports, and re-d0 this whenever you make any changes to feed entries within that calendar year.